Badges/FAQs

Badges FAQ as of August 5, 2011
DRAFT IN PROGRESS -- changing daily
Got questions you don't already see here? Please add them below.

What is a badge?

• A 'badge' is a symbol or indicator of an accomplishment, skill, quality or interest.
  
• Badges are used to set goals, motivate behaviors, represent achievements and communicate success.
• And to support learning that happens in new ways and new spaces beyond the traditional classroom, from online courses to after-school programs to work and life experience.
• This motivates learning and signals achievement across communities and institutions. And provides a more complete picture of learners' skills, achievements and qualities to potential employers, educational organizations and communities.
  

What do badges do?
Badges can:

• capture a wide set of skills and achievements.
  
• provide concrete evidence and proof of your skills, achievements and qualities.
• represent them to potential employers, communities and stakeholders.
• unlock new career and learning opportunities.

Why do we need badges?

• In today's world, learning happens everywhere. With multiple pathways for learners to gain competencies and skills.
• Learning opportunities have grown to include multiple contexts, experiences and interactions. And have become more social, informal, participatory, creative and lifelong.
• What's missing is the public recognition of these competencies and skills. It's often difficult to get credit or recognition for these new forms of learning.
• A badge system can fill this gap. Providing the critical missing piece for the web and other new learning environments to realize their full potential.

What are the benefits of badges?
Badges can:

• Signal achievement. Badges signal skills and achievements to peers, potential employers, educational institutions and others.
• Recognize informal learning. Get credit and recognition for learning that happens outside of school. e.g., in after-school programs, work experience or online.
• Transfer learning across spaces and contexts. Make skills more portable across jobs, learning environments and places.
• Capture more specific skills than traditional degrees. Badges allow a more granular recognition of specific skills than a traditional degree.
• Support greater specialization and innovation. Move faster to support and recognize new skills than traditional degree or certificate programs.
• Allow greater diversity. With specific recognition for "soft skills," social habits, ability to collaborate, etc. than traditional programs measure or recognize.
• Motivate participation and learning outcomes. Badges provide feedback, milestones and rewards throughout a course or learning experience, encouraging engagement and retention.
• Allow multiple pathways to learning. Encourage learners to take new paths or spend more time developing specific skills.
• Unlock privileges. For example, students at a school computer lab might be required to earn a "Digital Safety" badge before being allowed to surf the web.
• Enhance your identity and reputation. Badges raise your profile with the learning community and peers. And allow you to aggregate identities from across other communities.
• Build community and social capital. Help learners find peers or mentors with similar interests. Community badges help formalize camaraderie, team synthesis and communities of practice.
• Capture the learning path and history. With degrees or cumulative grades, much of the learning path -- the set of steps and milestones that led to the degree -- is lost or hard to see. Badges can capture a more specific set of skills and qualities dates as they occur along the way, along with issue dates for each. This means we can track the set of steps the most successful learners take to gain their skills -- and replicate that experience for others.
• Recognize new skills and literacies. New literacies that are critical to success in today's digital world -- like appropriating information, judging its quality, multitasking and networking -- are not typically taught in schools and don't show up on a transcript. Badges can recognize these new skills and literacies.
• Provide a more complete picture of the learner. Give a more complete skills and learning history and overview for potential employers, schools, peer groups and others.

What kinds of skills and accomplishments can badges represent? Badges can represent a diverse range of skills, competencies, qualities, achievements and interests, including:

• "hard skills" like completing a course, mastering a specific programming language or math concept.
• "soft skills" like critical thinking, communication or collaboration.
• community aspects like reputation and status
• new skills like digital literacies.
• specific, granular accomplishments or activities like leaving helpful comments for other learners, logging into an online learning web site for 10 consecutive days

Who can issue badges?
Badges can be created, defined and issued by a number of sources, including:

• Traditional educational institutions (e.g., x, y or z)
• Professional bodies (e.g. doctors, engineers, accountants)
• International credential assessment agencies
• Non formal, community learning organizations (e.g. Adult Basic Education, Literacy, Employability)
• Communities of practice (e.g., open education projects, peer learners, or the individual learners themselves)
• After-school programs and learning networks.
• Online courses and open courseware initiatives.
• Companies/organizations that employ people

What are the different type and levels of badges?

• "Smaller" badges can be used for motivation and feedback and tied to smaller behaviors or achievements. (Like those on the online forum "Stack Overflow," or x, y or z).
• "Larger" badges can be used for certification purposes. Endorsed by specific organizations or other authorities, with more rigorous or defined assessments.
• Basic or foundational badges can provide the core or entry-level framework for acquiring skills
• Intermediate and expert level badges can provide the pathways and milestones to guide learners through to mastery.
• Lower level badges may be required as pre-requisites to unlock higher level badges, much as we have seen in various gaming environments.
• These requirements can be made explicit through documented pathways and instructions, providing learners with a roadmap toward mastery.
• Or a "stealth assessment" approach can involve particular actions or accomplishments suddenly unlocking higher levels, making learners more aware of their learning and motivating engagement.
• Multiple badges can be aggregated into higher-level "meta badges" that represent more complex literacies or competencies.
• These meta-badges can be created and issued by organizations to target specific sets of skills and to signal general mastery.

What form do badges take? Is it just something I stick on a web page or sew on my shirt?

• The badge itself is more than a static image or button -- its value comes from the information or "metadata" attached to it.
• The information "behind" each badge provides justification and validation, including:
  • who issued the badge
  • the issue date
  • how the badge was earned
  • hyperlinks back to artifacts, documents, or testimonials demonstrating the work that lead to earning the badge.
  • enable authentication back to the issuer.
• This supporting data reduces the risk of gaming the system (e.g., illegitimately copying badges and putting them on your site) and builds in an implicit validation system.
• The metadata may vary based on the particular skill, assessment and issuer.

How are badges validated?
i.e. How can we ensure that this badge in fact belongs to this user? How can we understand the value of the badge compared to others?

1. <u>Badge as a gateway to evidence:</u> A badge is more than a badge, it is linked to the evidence and justification of the badge including the learner’s work, and any feedback or endorsements from peers and reviewers. Additionally, the badge carries with it all metadata needed to completely understand the badge, including title, description, issuer, issue date, authentication link, evidence link, expiration date, group id, etc. We are working with partners to determine the exact specs for the associated metadata.
   
2. <u>Open Badge Infrastructure Trusted groups:</u> There may be instances where certain issuers or groups of issuers are trusted or accepted within a certain community or for certain badges. For example, official Gold Star badges may only be issued by a core set of designated issuers, and thus we would want to confirm that existing Gold Star badges that a user has are in fact from one or more of those issuers, and not counterfeit or from another source. This can be accomplished using the Mozilla open badge infrastructure group ID metadata. The group ID is an identifying code that represents a trusted group of issuers. When validating a badge through the authentication link, the validator could request the group ID code as well to confirm that the badge was not only in fact issued to this user on this date, but also issued by a trusted issuer. One thing to note on this is that the group ID requires business decisions to be made outside of the infrastructure, for example, in the case of the Gold Star badges, it would be dependent on the authoritative body or group of issuers, to determine who is a trusted issuer, request the group ID and approve access to the group ID as issuers join the infrastructure. We are still working through the specifics and workflow for group ID and will be working directly with partners to ensure we have needs covered.
   
3. <u>Endorsements/branding:</u> Badges can be endorsed by industry experts, key communities of practice or authority figures, like the White House for Gold Star badges, or Mozilla for web development badges. Or, as another example, someday down the line, Harvard and NASA may have badges, each with their own reputation and authority. The badges themselves can be branded with the endorsement, within the metadata, as well as potentially on the badge design itself, adding layers of perceived validation and value. Of course, branding can be spoofed, but matching the branding with the issuer metadata and authentication link will guarantee the validity of the badge.

What are the key components of a successful badge system?
The key elements of an open badge system for connected learning are:

1. badges
2. assessments
3. an open infrastructure for issuing, collecting and sharing badges.

How does assessment work?

• For badges to hold real value and carry the weight of more traditional grades or degrees, a ssessment and quality is critical.
• Badges can contain multiple levels of assessment, depending on the use case, community or intended audience
  • some will require distinct pre-defined assessment exercises and success criteria
  • others may be loosely defined and require learner reflection or peer recommendations.
• Hard skills may require standard or more rigid rubrics to compare learner work against.
• Softer skills can be more fluid and require more open and social assessments like peer reviews or endorsements.
• For certification badges, intended for audiences like hiring managers, admission boards, more rigorous assessments can be required
• For badges intended to simply build community or reward behaviors, simple assessments may be enough

How can badges provide greater flexibility and innovation in assessment?
Badges can help:

• drive innovation around new types of assessments (e.g., x or y)
• provide more personalized assessments for learners (e.g., x or y)
• move beyond out of date or irrelevant testing practices (e.g., x or y)

For example:

• Asynchronous assessment. Instead of being required to take an exam at a pre-determined time, for example, learners can seek out the assessment on their own time.
• "Stealth assessment." Assessment and awarding badges can happen automatically and provide immediate feedback. [Need a half sentence summary of what "stealth assessment is.]
• Portfolio assessment. Work samples, projects and other artifacts the learner has produced or been involved in can demonstrate skills and competencies.
• Multiple assessors or group assessment. In traditional classrooms, an individual instructor generally does most of the assessing. An open badge system can support assessment from multiple contexts, including course organizers, peers, or learners themselves. This flexible and networked nature could mean that there are multiple paths or assessment options for earning a badge, making the system more flexible, ensuring that the needs of each learner are met and limiting the learning path constraints.

To support connected learning goals, wherever possible assessments should be:

• interest-driven. [half-sentence on what "interest-driven" means and how its different.]
• flexible. to accomodate individual interests and learning paths.
• include peers. support recommendations and endorsements from peers and community-members.
• connected to tangible artifacts. encourage learners to produce work, projects or artifacts that are valuable or relevant outside of the assessment context.

What does the badge infrastructure do?
The badge infrastructure:

• supports the issuing, collection, and display of badges.
• allows learners to tie badges to their idenity, and carry their badges with them wherever they go
• displays their badges to the audiences they care about -- peers, employers, or other institutions.
• allows learners to group, sort and manage their badges, and set privacy controls.
• is open and decentralized, to support badges from multiple sources
• and enable display across multiple sites.

How can learners manage their badges for different uses and audiences?

• Badges' value increases as learners gain control over how they're displayed for different audiences and contexts.
• Learners can create subsets and control which badges are available to different audiences. For example, you may want to display one set of badges for your peers, but another set for a specific potential employer.
• Learners can also add badges to any external website or environment that supports badge display. These include personal websites, blogs, and social networking environments LinkedIn or Facebook.

What is Mozilla doing with badges?
Mozilla is building an open and decentralized badge infrastructure. This infrastructure will support badges from any issuer across the web, and allow learners to collect their badges, associate them with a single open identity, and carry the badges with them across websites and experiences. The goal is to support learning as it occurs across the web, empower learners to share evidence of their learning, skills and experiences with anyone.
What is the Mozilla and P2PU badge pilot?

• P2PU and Mozilla, in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation, are implementing a badge pilot project.
• The pilot uses the experimental badge framework and January session of the School of Webcraft, a set of open courses around web development education

The badge pilot has three core components:

1. Pilot Badges
   • The pilot involves a small initial set of skills chosen by the web development community.
   • These include Javascript proficiency, accessibility, and a range of hard skill, soft skill and multi-leveled badges.
   • Plus community-oriented badges that can be awarded from peer to peer.
   • Many of these badges will be offically endorsed by Mozilla.
   • The initial pilot will be scale up and grow to include additional skills, competencies and behaviors, and expanded to other P2PU classes beyond webcraft.
2. Assessment
   • The pilot will explore a range of assessment types, including:
   • peer assessment
   • self-assessment
   • portfolio assessment
   • stealth assessment
   • The Javascript badge assessment, for example, will require learners to submit work that demonstrates competency. Peers will then rate the work against a predefined rubric and set of criteria. Once the rating reaches a particular threshold, the badge will be issued.
   • The Accessibility badge will require experience designing or developing for challenged users or accessibility technologies, plus a blog post with reflection and analysis of the experience. A group of accessibility gurus within the community will then assess the work and issue badges accordingly.
   • Other badges may be aligned directly with courses, with course organizers able to assess work and issue badges.
3. Infrastructure
   • The pilot badge project will involve building an initial version of the badge infrastructure to support issuing badges from the School of Webcraft, and allowing learners to collect and display their badges across participating sites.
   • An early prototype of the infrastructure was completed at the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival in November, 2010.
   • This protoype and initial feedback are being used to expand the infrastructure and integrate it into the School of Webcraft learning environment, beginning in January 2011. courses

Who else are you partnering with?
Mozilla is working with other collaborators and partners, including iRemix and the National Writing Project, to work through their specific use cases and scenarios. The goal is to help develop a plan for badges that captures learning and achievement within their environments, while also plugging into a larger overall badge infrastructure. Our aim is to learn quickly from a broad combination of different badges, use cases, and assessments, and support badges from across any environment where learning is occurring.

Who should be Involved?
You. Mozilla is looking for collaborators and help in designing and evaluating badge concepts and implementations. If you have feedback or are interested in participating or designing a set of badges of your own, contact us at open-assessment@googlegroups.com.
What are some questions you're currently exploring?

The right badges

• What skills should be assessed? Who decides?
• Are some skills better left unassessed?
• What do we want to encourage? How do we avoid encouraging the "wrong" behavior?

External influences

• How much influence should outside stakeholders, such as employers, have on badges?
• Should they be able to design assessments and badges that are relevant to them?
• How do we allow them to have a say without creating imbalances in the system, or constraining learning?

Granularity

• What's the right level of granularity for individual badges?
• For example, the HTML5 badge recognizes mastery of the entire language. Should there be HTML tag-level badges as well?
• Should badges aggregate into larger or higher level badges?

Badge lifetime and evolution

• Should badges expire?
• What's the best way to deal with skills that need to be refreshed or renewed?
• How can the badge system grow with learners?

Motivation

• How does introducing badges affect learners' motivations?
• If learners were already intrinsically motivated, how do we avoid "crowding out" those motivations with an extrinsic badge system?

Gaming and Validity

• For any system with value, some people will inevitably try to cheat or "game" the system.
• How will people game the system? How much will they do so?
• How do we discourage gaming and recognize when it happens?

Formal learning

• How badges translate to more traditional learning environments?
• What's required to make traditional schools and institutions value and recognize badges?
• Can we meet those requirements without requiring more fundamentally changes?

What does the Open Badge infrastructure consist of?
The Open Badge infrastructure involves four basic elements:

1. A metadata specification detailing the information that makes up a badge. This includes the badge issuer, issue date, description, image file, authentication link, link to learner's work/evidence, expiration information, etc.
2. A central hub used to store information about badges collected.
3. A "Badge Backpack" providing each learner with a view of all badges stored in the hub and management tools.
4. An API for independent badge issuers to push badges into the open badge infrastructure, and for display sites to pull badges out (with the learner's permission).

This diagram illustrates the Open Badge infrastructure: http://mzl.la/hO0roT
Badge issuers and displayers are intentionally independent from the infrastructure. This infrastructure provides a metadata spec and API that anyone can use to issue badges within the system. Similarly, any site wishing to display badges can do so using the API and metadata specification.

How does the technical process work?
A web site issuing badges uses a simple REST API to push badges into the hub. The issuer does this by making a POST request with a URL that points back to a badge manifest on the issuing server. The hub will retrieve and validate this file from the issuing server, then store the badge.
The Badge Backpack retrieves this information from the hub using the same REST API and presents the user with a visual management interface displaying all of their badges. Each learner can decide which badges to share with participating sites from the Backpack. Once the learner has shared badges with a display site, that site can display the badges by requesting information from the hub using the REST API.
The end result is that sites issuing or displaying badges do not need to know anything about each other — they are only concerned with exchanging information with the hub.
When a learner shares badges with a display site, the displayer authenticates each badge by calling back to the issuer through the authentication link included in the badge metadata. This call back essentially asks: "1) did you issue the badge to this person? and 2) is the badge still valid?" If the issuing site answers yes, the badge is displayed.